On Sunday, Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady could be seen, and heard, giving a tongue lashing to his offensive lineman. The subject came up during the latest edition of his Let’s Go! podcast on SiriusXM.
“I don’t know if it’s motivation, but I do think that it’s a bad day when there’s more F-bombs than touchdowns,” Brady told Jim Gray. “So that was not one of my better days. But F-bombs, they used to kind of keep from showing you in those moments but now it’s kind of for the world to see. So that’s just the way it is.”
The way it now is obviously didn’t keep Brady from doing it. Gray asked how the teammates take it, when it’s happening.
“It’s all good,” Brady said. “You know, I think I have a great rapport with all my teammates and they know that the only reason why I’m doing it is to try to motivate them and try to get us to a higher level. It’s nothing that I don’t say, you know, if I don’t feel like we’re living up to the expectations and playing up to the expectations that we’re capable of then that’s my job. I’m a quarterback. I’m not expecting the right tackle to do it. I’m not expecting the running back to do it. I’m not expecting the receiver to do it. I’m expecting myself to do it. I’m the one out there speaking in the huddle, calling the plays. That’s what my job is to try to get us going and to try to rally us. And there’s a lot of ways to do it. And sometimes it’s some positive encouragement, which you do a lot. Sometimes it’s, you know, getting on people and trying to raise the level, the sense of urgency, and raising my voice and trying to create a different vibration for the whole offense. And that’s ultimately what you’re trying to do.”
That’s fine. And he’s not the only quarterback to ever do it. What made it stand out on Sunday was that, the day before, Brady skipped the Saturday walk-through and meetings because he attended Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s wedding on Friday night in New York City. It’s hard to wonder whether he has the same authority with his teammates as he usually does, given those circumstances.
Without listening to the full podcast, it’s unclear whether that specific wrinkle was directly addressed by Gray or Brady. If it was, it didn’t make its way into the partial transcript provided by SiriusXM.
That said, Brady made indirect reference to his absence when talking to their guest this week, NBA great Kevin Durant.
“I almost look at like a football season like you’re going away on deployment in the military, and it’s like, man, here I go again,” Brady said. “There’s only one way to do it. And I think Jim, we’ve talked from time to time just about how do you enjoy the certain moments of it? The reality is you can really only be authentic to yourself, right? Whenever you may say, ‘Oh man, I want to, you know, make sure I spend a little more time doing this.’ When it comes down to it, your competitiveness takes over and as much as you want to have this playful balance with the work balance, you’re going to end up doing exactly what you’ve always done, which is why you are who you are. You’re going to go, how do I get it done? You know, what do I got to do to get it done?”
On Saturday, Brady struck that balance by physically checking out. That rarely happens for starting NFL quarterbacks. It never happened in past years for Brady. And it’s fair to wonder whether teammates react the same way when he’s dropping F-bombs on them the day after he decided to say eff it to a final walk-through practice and meetings aimed at preparing to play, and to win, in Pittsburgh.
